A Man, a Woman, and a Chapel
by Towie
Summary: Assume that a little more happened at the end of Informed Consent. Vaugley HouseCameron. Cameron's POV. OneShot.


**A/N: Assume that a little more happened at the end of Informed Consent. Vaugley HouseCameron. Cameron's POV. OneShot.  
**

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**A Man, a Woman, and a Chapel**

I gasped inwardly.

Not even surprise could bring an outward response from me. It hurt to exist. My stomach writhed in pain as it ate away at itself. The emptiness filled me. I couldn't believe that I was right. I couldn't believe that I was wrong.

The hand on my shoulder gripped tighter. The thumb rubbed up and down my shoulder blade as another droplet escaped my eye.

"I'm proud of you," he said.

I gasped again, but this time let my lungs fill. My tears continued to fall, hot and salty, running straight down my face to my chin, where they itched with the anticipation of falling to the floor. I wanted to stand up and bury my face into his shoulder, but I couldn't. It was his fault. He made me do this. How could I confide in him?

The hand released me. I felt a brace in me crumble. I was fragile, my last support just crumbled. As I heard his labored steps reach the door I wept.

"Wait," I whispered, barely audible. It must have sounded like a sob, because the sound of his cane continued to dissipate. I tried again, "Wait. Don't go," this time with a broken sound, just loud enough to catch him before he passed the chapel doors.

The cane stood firmly on the ground, its owner did not. I heard him slump against the door frame. I turned around. Every tear that had pooled on my face dripped to the floor. His face gave away the pain he was feeling in his leg. Despite the ploy that he had been napping while we were working, I knew better. He was working his brain just as hard. His body needed sleep, and once again fatigue equated to pain for him.

He looked at me. A pang of pain erupted in my stomach. It overpowered my already intense grief for a moment, and that was all it needed. I broke out in a fit of sadness, crying intensely, fighting of every breath, letting out a cry of agony with every exhale. I doubled over in the pew, clutching my stomach where the emptiness laid. It felt like someone had cut out a part of me.

"You! You did this to me!" I yelped though my sobs. "Why... why... why... why... why?" I repeated over and over, gradually quieting as I fell to one side and laid on the pew in a fetal position.

I expected to hear him leave, but he didn't. Instead I heard the clunk of his cane draw nearer.

"I did nothing of the sort," his voice came. "You did something that you, despite feeling was wrong, decided was right. I suspect you saw a bit of your husband in him, as well as a baby murderer."

How dare he! How dare he say that! I sobbed even more, but sat myself upright and looked him straight in the eyes. I could not have been more angry with him.

He sat.

"You didn't do it because you wanted to help him. You did it because it was right," House continued. "For that, I'm proud of you."

He just used my own words on me. He just compared me to himself. The ultimate reason I fell for him. Because he did what was right, not to help the patient, but because it was right. I had been resigning from the fellowship when I told him that. He still remembered. And worst of all, he was right.

He was proud of me because I did what he wanted to do. What he would have done in my situation. And now he was proud?

He stood up and walked up to the alter. He looked like a priest standing up there. A god among no one but a sinner. He was to be my savior. Yet, he had done nothing to reassure me, nothing to forgive me. He only showed me that he wasn't perfect either. Or maybe we both were.

I followed him. When I got there he looked me in the eyes.

"Are you questioning your lack of faith?"

"I'm not sure." And I really wasn't. Why had I found myself in the chapel? Was it because it was so comfortable, even if I didn't share the faith? Religion, for me, had always just been a crutch for those who could not accept the truth. But now, I could see myself using it as well. Maybe it was more than just a crutch. "I'm still not a believer. But maybe I'm questioning my atheism." Agnostic? Maybe that's what I was at that moment. But I couldn't be bothered. I noticed at that point that I was standing on the alter of a chapel with House. We weren't more than a foot away from each other and his hand had found its way to my shoulder again. I blushed as I said, "I really don't know." But that time I think my response was to something else my mind was pondering.

He merely hummed in response before walking away.

"House?" I quipped as he walked up the aisle. "Do you think it was right, what you did? Because I thought you wouldn't be able to do it. Since, well, since it's what Stacy and Cuddy did to you."

He didn't talk for a long time. He just stood there facing the door. I watched the back of his head for what seemed like hours. Then, finally, he spoke.

"Sometimes patients are wrong."

He walked through the door and left me alone again, yet, somehow more comfortable.


End file.
